Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins had a bone to pick with the NHL on Friday night, and rightfully so.
It was a tough break for the B’s when officials upheld the initial ruling on Auston Matthews’ deadlock-breaking tally at 11:33 in the third period — putting Toronto on the road to a 3-2 advantage in the best-of-seven series.
While Zach Hyman, fighting for position down low, bumped Tuukka Rask in the crease in the seconds before Matthews fired one home, Boston’s pleas for a reversal on the merit of goaltender interference fell on deaf ears.
Bruins challenge for goaltender interference. No dice.
1-0 Toronto. pic.twitter.com/TI0RpuHJLg
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) April 20, 2019
Hey, that’s hockey. And especially when it comes to goaltender interference, relying on the league to bail you out offers the same chance of success as say — hitting a bullseye in darts blindfolded.
Still, considering THIS was waved off for goaltender interference during tonight’s game between the Flames and Avalanche, one has the right to be awfully perturbed by the call — and subsequent review — on the ice.
The Flames score, but it's immediately waived off. Bill Peters and the #Flames challenge for goaltender interference. Peters challenged five goals for interference, but only won once. The original call of no goal stands after review. pic.twitter.com/ad5DBWnC89
— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) April 20, 2019
“Well, clearly interferes with Tuukka. It goes to Toronto, and they have to make a decision. … From my viewpoint, it certainly looked like goaltender interference,” Cassidy noted. “The call didn’t go our way.”
“I think it could have gone either way, to be honest with you,”
Patrice Bergeron
added. “I really think that – I thought there was a chance, to be honest. But you know, when the decision is made, you have to look forward.”
With Boston now pushed to the brink and set to fight for its life up in enemy territory on Easter Sunday — a potential autopsy on the Bruins’ 2018-19 campaign could very well center on the call (or lack thereof, more appropriately) on the sequence leading to Matthews’ opening strike.
But let’s not get it twisted. Boston’s current predicament — a game away from elimination in what is now a WIDE-OPEN Eastern Conference with Tampa Bay out of the running — has little to do with a frustrating ruling from the NHL.
Rather, it has a LOT to do with what else the Bruins showcased during Friday’s 2-1 result — and it wasn’t much.
Matthews might have opened the scoring midway through the third period, but it wasn’t like the Bruins was making
Frederik Andersen
sweat down the other end of the ice.
In a pivotal Game 5 / on home ice / with matchups tilted in their favor with last change / and the score knotted at zeroes entering the final stanza — the Bruins managed to land ….
just three shots on goal in the third period before Matthews made them pay.
It was par for the course from Boston’s offense on Friday night — with the club only firing 15 shots on goal through the first 40 minutes of regulation against a Leafs club that relinquished an average of 33.1 shots on goal per game this season (24th overall in the NHL).
“The only thing I remember was, after the first period, we had six shots,”
David Pastrnak
said. “Put more pucks on their goalie. We scored five last game, so we’ve got to make sure we shoot everything to the net and recover pucks and just a little bit more offense, I guess.”
Fair to say, you’re not doing yourself any favors when you only manage to generate 40 shot attempts and 18 shots on goal during 5v5 play in a momentum-swinging playoff bout.
“That’s a good question,”
David Krejci
said when asked about Boston’s struggles in the offensive zone. “If you have the answer, I would like to know. So we’ll put more pucks in the net next game.”
While Boston’s top-six was expected to trade punches with both the Matthews and
line for most of the series, the B’s were expecting to get their licks in with solid contributions from the bottom half of their forward corps — with a physical forecheck poised to bottle up Toronto’s stretch-pass happy system and open up holes in the Leafs’ defensive efforts.
Charlie Coyle
(16:46 ATOI, two goals, three points) has held up his end of the bargain while spending a majority of his shifts in high-danger areas — as only 42.86 percent of his faceoffs on Friday came in the O-zone.
As for the rest of Boston’s bottom-six?
David Backes
logged just 4:36 of ice time and didn’t play in the entire third period,
Noel Acciari
posted a Corsi For Percentage of just 16.67 and
Marcus Johansson
has failed to get on the scoresheet in three playoff matchups.
And even up top — with Boston’s big guns of Bergeron, Pastrnak and
Brad Marchand
coming off of a collective six-point showing in Wednesday’s win over Toronto — Boston failed to capitalize.
With last change back in Boston’s hands on home, Boston once again was able to dictate its matchups — opening the game with Bergeron and Marchand taking shifts against Matthews,
Andreas Johnsson
and Kapanen.
The plan backfired spectacularly — with the Leafs holding a commanding edge in
shot attempts (8-1), shots on goal (4-1) and most importantly, goals scored (1-0) during the 5:07 of 5v5 TOI in which Bergeron and Matthews shared the ice.
In that regard, Friday was the best of both worlds for the Leafs. Not only was the Matthews line able to get the better of Bergeron for most of the night — Boston’s most-utilized forward trio in terms of usage only mustered three shot
attempts
in close to eight minutes of 5v5 action. Of those three, zero led to high-danger scoring chances around Andersen.
Fair to say —
you catch my drift.